Time will be kind to Big Fish. That's my prediction. Although Burton may rightly have his greatest films to come, aficionados of his work may look back upon Big Fish and find it, if not the crown jewel in his career, at least a jewel. Prior to this film, the director's most successful tugging of the heartstrings was Edward Scissorhands. Fish one-ups that film, flirting this close with over sentimentality, in its effort to follow one son's attempt to learn who his father is. Edward Bloom is that father, a man who spent more time telling stories than he did raising his son. The youngest Bloom pieces together the facts from the fiction-laced truths, leading him to learn of his father's very surreal life, one lived under circus tents and padded by tall tales.

The movie veers away from the clichés associated with traditional man-on-his-death-bed stories, delivering a movie many are surprised to see carrying "A Tim Burton Film" credit. Big Fish also departs from the bleak, black and white-striped color pallet of previous Burton films, and instead delivers a lush world reserved for fables and myths, two things time tends to be kind to. Hopefully, the same treatment is in store for the heartfelt tale of Edward Bloom.

Burton's first truly dark feature film, this hit also marked his first pairing with future Batman Keaton, who plays the eponymous ghost with the most. The ghoulish "bio-exorcist" Betelgeuse is hired by recently deceased spouses Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) to help them scare away the new tenants of their former home. Unfortunately, the "gonzo" Betelgeuse (who looks more than a little like Heath Ledger's Joker) falls for the new residents' Goth daughter (Winona Ryder) and soon proves himself to be a less than trustworthy ally.

Beetlejuice boasts plenty of hilarious, now-vintage Burton moments, such as purgatory's bureaucratic waiting room and the "Day-O (Banana Boat Song)" dinner table sequence. The movie established Burton as a filmmaker who could make commercially viable "dark movies;" indeed, the "Tim Burton style" of Goth filmmaking has now become an identifiable and oft-copied brand, with Burton being akin to the Hot Topic of filmmakers. As much as Beetlejuice owes its success to Burton, a lot of credit must also go to Keaton, whose crazed comedic performance ironically helped create much of the backlash against his casting in Burton's next movie, Batman.

3. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

"I know you are, but what am I?" "I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel." "Au revoir, Pee-Wee". Those are just some of the many, many quotable lines from Burton's 1985 comedy. Sure, on the surface, it's about a boy looking for his missing bike, with the role of "boy" played by Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Rubens). But behind the trips to the Alamo's basement and chase scenes set on the Warner Bros. backlot, Big Adventure is a trippy, ridiculous and fun road trip about how retaining a lot of what makes childhood special while growing up is never a bad thing.

Film school criticism aside, the movie is just freakin' awesome. From Pee-Wee's epic breakfast delivery system, to his bike straight from the Toys 'R Us equivalent to Q-Branch, Burton's first mainstream film is more for adults than the kids browsing for it in the kiddie section at Blockbuster. Watching this movie more than once a year is required viewing.

2. Edward Scissorhands

There is one movie that always makes us cry, no matter where or when we see it. We're not proud of this fact – IGN Movies is a bunch of strong lumberjacks who like professional wrestling, Pantera and cold beer. That movie is Burton's Edward Scissorhands. We watched it again, and cried. Again.

Edward Scissorhands is a modern-day fairy tale. Along the same lines as Geppetto from Pinocchio, Vincent Price is a lonely old man who, in lieu of a real son, decides to create one. Instead of wood though, Price uses wacky robots to create his inventions. But this is a Burton film, not Disney, and the Inventor soon dies before completing his son, leaving him incomplete, with scissors for hands. Edward Scissorhands (Johnny Depp) continues living on his own in the big creepy house on the hill until Peggy Boggs, the local Avon representative (Dianne Wiest) shows up, decides that this is no place for a half-finished synthetic boy with scissors for hands to live, and brings him back to town.

Edward Scissorhands is classic Burton. The black and white Edward appearing in the pastel colored world below shows him as the outcast he is. There is a ton of social commentary just under the surface of the film. It's easy to get Burton's point about outcasts when we see Edward dressed in normal clothes, complete with huge scissorhands sticking out of the sleeves. The feelings of insecurity, embarrassment, and just wanting to fit in are feelings that we can all relate to. When Ryder wraps her arms around Depp and asks him to hold her and he whispers back, "I can't..." well, here come the tears.

Burton loves his freaks, oddballs and misfits. Witness Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Peewee Herman and most recently, Karl the Giant in Big Fish. So Ed Wood fits right in. This 1992 film was downright adoring in its treatment of Wood, glossing over his alcoholism, hucksterism and involvement in pornography (this was the era before Jenna Jameson became an E! darling).

It skips all of Wood's past and opens with him trying to sell Glen or Glenda. A chance meeting with Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) forms an extremely unlikely partnership, one that lasted to Lugosi's pitiful end. Also in Wood's circle is his stressed out wife Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker) and would-be sex changer John "Bunny" Breckenridge (Bill Murray).

All of these characters are at play in Burton's deranged bio-pic about a guy who made a career out of making awful a part of his charm. Landau and Depp's performances alone are worth seeing, as they elevate the film and prove that Burton can tell any story, even one as pathetic as Ed Wood's. Not only can he tell them, but he can make them into art. Not bad for a movie about a guy who made Plan 9.